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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 138

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 30, 2022 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 138 - Nov/30/22
Mr. Michael Kram (Regina—Wascana, CPC)
Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this chamber to speak in favour of good legislation and against bad legislation. This evening I am doing the latter. Bill C-235 represents yet another top-down, Ottawa-knows-best approach to the western Canadian resource sector, continuing a legacy that goes all the way back to Pierre Trudeau's national energy program, and also includes more recent legislation, such as Bill C-69, the no more pipelines bill, and Bill C-48, the west coast oil tanker ban. Opposition to this bill from elected politicians in western Canada should come as no surprise to even the most casual of political observers. This bill applies to the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba only. When we voted on this bill at second reading, of the 62 members from those three provinces, only 10 voted in favour; 51 voted against, and one MP abstained. Put another way, this bill is opposed by fully 82% of the MPs from the provinces to which it applies. When this bill was being studied at committee, this opposition was echoed by our provincial counterparts. The committee heard from two of the three affected provincial governments, and they basically said the same thing, that this legislation was neither wanted nor needed. The only provincial government we did not hear back from was Alberta, because it was in the process of installing a new premier, who had just finished campaigning on a platform of asserting provincial sovereignty and resisting interference from Ottawa. I am quite confident that if we had heard from Danielle Smith, her feedback would have been very similar to what we heard from her counterparts in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I hope that the views of these provincial representatives are not lost on the members of this House from the other parties and from the other provinces when they are making up their minds about how to vote on this bill. Just imagine for a minute if there were a federal private member's bill about Hydro-Quebec or Quebec's aerospace sector that applied only to Quebec. If 82% of Quebec MPs voted against the bill, and Premier François Legault testified at committee against the bill, I cannot help but think that the MPs from the other provinces would take notice, and those MPs who voted in favour of the bill at second reading would be thinking that maybe they should reconsider before they vote for the bill again at third reading. The stated objective of Bill C-235 is “the building of a green economy in the Prairies”. While the bill never defines the term “green economy”, I think that in general, the term “green” has become synonymous with “environmentally friendly”. However, the bill does not seem to recognize the good, environmentally friendly work already being done in the prairie provinces independently of the federal government. In addition to hearing from provincial government representatives, the committee also heard from municipal representatives, organized labour, the mining sector, oil and gas workers, farmers and ranchers. They all spoke in considerable detail about the work that is already being done on the Prairies to be more environmentally friendly, often because being good environmental stewards makes good economic sense as well. In fact, about the only people the committee did not hear from were representatives of Canada's indigenous peoples. I will leave it to the proponents of this bill to explain why they were not consulted. Particular concerns were raised about paragraph 3(3)(b), which focuses on fostering job creation and skills transfer in regions that rely on traditional energy industries. It is implied that these actions will be necessary because of the Liberal government's continued opposition to the development of the western Canadian resource sector and the continuation of the Liberals' policy of leaving Canadian oil and gas in the ground where it does not do anybody any good. In any case, at committee, Mr. Bill Bewick cautioned against transitioning workers out of the oil and gas sector too quickly and argued in favour of recruiting more workers to the sector to increase production. I would like to quote what Mr. Bewick said at committee. He said, “If you really care about the environment, the single greatest thing Canada can do to reduce emissions is to get LNG flowing in copious amounts off our west coast.” Mr. Bewick went on to explain that Canadian liquefied natural gas should be exported to China, which would enable that country to shelve its plan to dramatically increase coal production and energy generation from coal. Doing so would save emissions equivalent to the size of Alberta's oil sands. This would be far preferable to landlocking Alberta's oil sands, as some Liberals have advocated for in the past. The war in Ukraine was also discussed. Here we are, more than nine months into Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, and the images on our TV screens are just as disturbing as when the war began back in February. Vladimir Putin and his thugs continue to commit genocide against their peaceful neighbours. Where does Vladimir Putin get the money to buy all the tanks, missiles and artillery that make up the Russian army? Even the most high-level analysis of the Russian economy will show that it is heavily dependent on oil and gas exports to western Europe. Instead, if we could export ethical Canadian oil and gas to western Europe, we could seriously inhibit Russia's ability to wage war against Ukraine or any of its other neighbours. This next point is very important. Even if the war in Ukraine were to end tomorrow, and even if Vladimir Putin decided that he wanted to be friends again with the international community and to give everyone a big group hug, it would be profoundly irresponsible for the international community, and Canada in particular, to allow western Europe to once again become dependent on oil and gas from Russia. The world needs more Canadian oil and gas, but we cannot do this if we are transitioning workers out of the oil and gas sector, and this is why Bill C-235 is so problematic. Finally, I would like to touch on the issue of Senate reform. If there are any political science students watching this debate, let me tell them right now that if they ever have to write a paper about Senate reform in Canada, Bill C-235 should be one of their examples. This bill applies to Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba only, and the vast majority, 82%, of MPs elected from those provinces voted against it. Unfortunately, this bill is probably going to become law, because unlike bicameral legislatures in other countries, Canada does not have an elected Senate with equal representation from all provinces. This is a problem that is not experienced by our American neighbours south of the border. If there were ever a bill in the U.S. Congress to take all of the money from North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana and give it to, say, California and Texas, such a bill may very well pass in the House of Representatives, but it would not pass in the Senate. That is because, although the seats in the House of Representatives are allocated by population, in the American Senate, every state, large or small, has the same number of senators, and every senator is elected. That means the large states like California and Texas cannot gang up and enact legislation that is detrimental to the small states, because any such bill would be defeated in the Senate. Sadly, there are no such safeguards in the Canadian parliamentary system. The larger provinces, namely Ontario and Quebec, can outvote the smaller provinces, in this case Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and there are no safeguards in the Senate to stop it. However, given that I am almost out of time, my thoughts on Senate reform will have to wait for another day. In conclusion, Bill C-235 represents an additional, unnecessary layer of federal government bureaucracy that will only get in the way of the good work already being done by provincial governments and the private sector. The only provinces affected by this bill, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, did not ask for it. They do not want it, they do not need it and they are better off without it. I would encourage all members to vote against Bill C-235.
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